


A Method To Madness

by pagan



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Double Penetration, Dubious Consent, F/M, Masturbation, Threesome - F/M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-03
Updated: 2012-02-03
Packaged: 2017-10-30 13:30:15
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,590
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/332253
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pagan/pseuds/pagan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Teddy Lupin was a man obsessed with two things in his life: his work and his employers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Method To Madness

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Threesome Big Bang 2011 over at LJ. The prompt was "Someone is stressed and they need to relax".  
>  **Disclaimer:** Only the plot is mine. Harry Potter characters are the property of JK Rowling and Bloomsbury/Scholastic. No profit is being made and no copyright infringement is intended.

_Damascus_  
Seat of the Umayyad Caliphate  
June, 702 CE 

The only light in the darkened chamber came from the fire blazing brightly on a small, circular pit in the ground. A cauldron had been positioned over the fire, held in place by a simple wooden support. Steam wafted up from it in silvery tendrils.

The alchemist watched eagerly as the liquid in his cauldron boiled and hissed. He stirred the bubbling mass seven times counter-clockwise then three-times clockwise and smiled triumphantly as the liquid changed its colour from a dark greenish-grey to a molten gold.

With great care, he used the wooden tongs lying on the table next to him to pick up a small, rusty, iron nail. Almost reverently, he lowered the nail into the bubbling liquid. A soft, almost inaudible hiss greeted him as solid mass met hot liquid.

After five seconds of having immersed the nail and half the length of the tongs in the golden liquid, he carefully removed both from the vessel. 

The nail glowed golden, all traces of rust removed. The wooden tongs remained unchanged.

Shivering with excitement, the alchemist reached out and gingerly touched the nail. It was cool to the touch with no evidence of it being immersed in hot, boiling liquid just moments before. 

He brought the nail up to his mouth, put it between his teeth and bit down, hard. 

The nail felt soft. 

With a burgeoning sense of excitement and wonder, he slowly removed it from his mouth. He stared at the nail in elation; his teeth had left marks on it.

 

*

 

Rumours of a book on alchemy written in a strange language containing the secret of turning base metal into gold quickly spread throughout the Umayyad Caliphate and beyond: to Alexandria, to Constantinople, and even to Rome. 

It was alleged to have been written by an Umayyad prince, one who was widely known to be fascinated by the secrets and wonders of alchemy, one who was rumoured to be learned in astrology, sorcery, and all kinds of magical and mysterious practices. 

*

Upon the death of the prince, the book was said to have been stolen by enemies of the Umayyad and smuggled out of Damascus to Constantinople. It was sent to another who claimed to be as learned as the prince in an attempt by those who had stolen it to uncover its secrets.

That other had failed to understand the book, written as it was in a language he was unable to decipher, and so instead he had kept the book hidden in an underground chamber, guarded and warded against the threat of the Umayyad Caliphate.

For many years thereafter, the Umayyad Caliphate waged wars and campaigns against the Byzantine Empire, reclaiming Egypt, Carthage and parts of Northern Africa.

The book however, remained elusive.

 

*

_Res Ipsa Loquitor - Specialist Research Services_  
Diagon Alley  
London  
October, 2017 CE 

 

Teddy Lupin was a man obsessed with two things in his life.

The first was his current project at work.

A slim, innocuous-looking bound volume sat on the table in front of him: the codex. 

The current bane of his existence. 

He knew he was being overly dramatic, but he was, to put it bluntly, horribly obsessed with trying to find the key that would allow him to decipher the contents of the codex. The key would be a sequence of symbols or letters that controlled how the text of the codex was originally encrypted or enciphered, and he was absolutely certain it was contained within the short message written on the first page of the codex itself.

The book proper was written in a language consisting of over one hundred different glyphs which bore a startling resemblance to the Arabic _abjad_. In fact, some glyphs looked liked they could have been part of the _abjad_ , that is, _if_ the Arabic alphabet actually contained more than twenty-eight letters. Some of the glyphs had diacritics that were unknown to the Arabic language.

The message, however, was fully written in flowing, proper Arabic script.

Translated into English, the message read:

 ** _My learned friend,  
That which you seek, you shall find. The one who knows all shall be your guide._**

He _knew_ that the key was contained within that short message. It had to be; there was no other reason for the message to be written in a language that could be so easily read by anyone.

Unfortunately, he was not very fluent in Arabic. He had only managed to flex his linguistic skills in that particular language during the short summer breaks spent in Alexandria visiting his cousin Draco when the latter had been posted to Gringotts’ Egyptian branch. That had been many years ago. However, he had been informed by his employers that _this_ was what several experienced translators had agreed was the meaning of the text. 

He had read through the text himself, and with his limited skills, the only difference had been that his second line had read rather clumsily as, “That you seek, you will find.” He put the difference down to the other translators being more grammatically correct than he was. 

After all, the meaning was the same. 

He scratched his head, ruffling the thick dark curls that had been neatly combed earlier this morning but now, at only half past ten, resembled a bird’s nest. 

He scowled at that fact, and at the text in front of him. As the feelings of irritation and helplessness at not being able to solve the mystery of the codex welled up inside him as it had unrelentingly for the past three months, he felt an accompanying sharp pain in his chest and a sudden rush of breathlessness. 

 

 _Breathe_ , he told himself, taking a deep breath and exhaling loudly through his mouth. _Relax._ He repeated his breathing techniques, but he still felt as though he was struggling to breathe. 

He tried not to, but as if of its own volition, his hands began to gather up the inkpots, quills, nibs, and parchment scattered on his large work table. They automatically and methodically sorted the parchment into three neat piles: clean, unused parchment; those filled with his scribbles within the past hour that might still be of use; and those he would later _Incendio_ after lunch. The quills were gathered up and put into a pewter mug that doubled as a holder for the many quills he owned, while the nibs went straight into a little decorative bowl his grandmother had given him. The inkpots were arranged in a straight line at the edge of the table by the colour of the ink it contained: from black, to blue, to red. The inkpot containing the green ink stumped him for several seconds —his heart rate accelerating in tandem — before he forced himself to take a deep breath and exhale forcefully — and rearranged the pots all over again, this time with the green coming first, then the blue, the black, and finally the red. 

The codex was currently slightly off-centre in front of him; he carefully aligned it, so it was placed exactly five and a half inches from the edge of his big desk.

 _There_ , he thought, satisfied as his breathing finally returned to its normal rhythm and the pain in his chest subsided. _A place for everything and everything in its place._

It was not as if he was what his employers called an obsessive compulsive with anxiety issues; it was simply that he liked things neat. 

He liked things tidy. 

He liked arranging things in a particular way.

And he hated having things cluttering up his desk, which, due to the nature of his job, was inevitable, which meant that he took a few minutes several times a day, throughout the day, to put everything in its place once more.

He liked making lists; he liked planning – sometimes even down to the minutiae – to reach a targeted result. He liked doing things in a particular way, in a particular sequence. 

Order and method made sense to him. 

By doing things _his_ way, he felt more in control of himself, and of his surroundings. As his grandmother had once put it, there was a method in his madness. It made no difference that he would disturb everything on his desk again when he wrestled with the mysterious codex in the next ten minutes, he always felt much better equipped to face the blasted book when everything was in order.

At the thought of the codex, he felt another wave of irritation coupled with anxiety wash over him. He had excelled in Arithmancy, Ancient Runes and Potions at Hogwarts. He was known for his sharp mind and even sharper analytical skills, and had never once met with a cipher that he could not break.

It was because of these skills that Draco had hired him straight out of Hogwarts to work with him and Hermione Granger in _Res Ipsa Loquitor_ , a firm they’d both started once Draco had left Gringotts and Hermione had left the Ministry. Teddy had always thought the firm was aptly named: _the thing speaks for itself_. The firm provided specialist research services to Gringotts, the Ministry and anyone else who had the financial wherewithal to pay. He had heard from his grandmother that Draco and Hermione had never got on well with each other in the years leading up to the last war, though now they rubbed along perfectly well with each other.

But the codex was a different matter.

 _It_ did not rub along well with _him_ at all.

He stared at the hand-written Arabic script and its translation, frowning at the latter and trying very hard to quell the feelings of anxiety and fear.

It had been sent over by Gringotts approximately five months before, with instructions for the firm to decipher what the goblins had firmly believed to be the _Liber Secretorum Alchimiae_ , that infamous codex sought by Muggles and wizards alike allegedly containing the secret of turning plain metal into gold. One of their Curse-Breakers had stumbled across the ancient book whilst traversing the Basilica Cistern in Istanbul. The firm had not asked, and Gringotts had not volunteered what its Curse-Breakers were up to in Turkey; the firm’s job was to break what the goblins had deduced, from their initial investigations, to be the most sought-after alchemical secret in the world. 

Teddy stared at the source of his distress. The codex consisted of around three hundred pages of these pseudo-Arabic glyphs, set out on parchment bound in leather so brittle and marked it was almost impossible to discern its original colour; Teddy surmised it to be some sort of animal hide, originally stained black.

From the placement of the punctuation, it was obvious the glyphs were written in sentences running from right to left, and Teddy felt certain that it would translate into Arabic. This was supported by the fact that some glyphs were repeated and such in areas where it suggests the placement of vowels, though Arabic vowels were unlike their English counterparts. Draco — the firm’s resident expert on Arabic and Hebraic languages — had made the same assessment.

The argument that the true language of the codex was Arabic was reinforced by the fact that the _Liber Secretorum Alchimiae_ was thought to have been written by Khalid ibn Yazid. Khalid was an Umayyad prince who had written many alchemical tomes and was supposedly a student of Marianos, a man believed by most Muggle scholars to be an Alexandrine monk highly learned in alchemy. Wizarding history had him pegged as a powerful mage. Despite the differences of opinion as to Marianos’ actual background, both Muggle and wizarding historians were in agreement as to the legend that Khalid had only managed to successfully turn metal into gold with Marianos’ help.

As such, in the course of their attempt to decipher the message, Hermione had looked through all correspondences known to be related to Khalid and the monk —or mage, depending on whose history — to see if there was anything that could possibly shed a light on the cryptic message in the codex. She had poured through the _Liber de compositione alchimiae_ — the first alchemical work translated from Arabic to Latin — an epistle by Marianos to Khalid, as well as other letters exchanged between them. She had even read through several obscure Latin texts believed by Muggle historians to be written by Marianos.

Draco had scoured other alchemical books and papers thought to be written by Khalid, in its original Arabic.

They had both come up with nothing. 

Draco and Hermione had failed in their attempts to crack the cipher contained in the codex. It was one of the reasons why they had hired him.

 _He_ was supposed to be better than them. 

He was a man who could discern algorithms and patterns in even the most jumbled of data. 

He could recite all prime numbers from one until ninety-seven by the time he was seven. 

He was _the_ man who solved his first cipher at the age of ten. 

_This_ was _supposed_ to be _simple_.

 _But there was no discernible pattern in the message,_ he thought despairingly.

He could not even string together the known Arabic _abjad_ in the codex to form a coherent word, much less a sentence without knowing the key, the pattern, the _very essence_ that tied everything together.

He wondered morosely if he was losing his touch. 

His hands twitched at that thought, eager to arrange something, to put something — _anything_ — in order, just to alleviate that crushing feeling, but he was met with the sight of a neat and tidy desk. He glanced around at the other two big desks in the room; they were cluttered with books and parchments and he half stood up, intending to walk to the one closest to him to arrange the books stacked haphazardly on it, but he resisted. The desks were those of his employers and Hermione had once warned him that if he touched anything on her desk, she’d hex Teddy till his balls fell off. He had given her a disbelieving laugh — honestly, who would have thought Hermione Granger would say something so very vulgar — until he’d caught the serious glint in her eye that made him choke and sputter into what was instead, a very embarrassed silence.

He was now left with no choice; the only way to relax at this moment and clear his mind so as to be able to work on the codex again was to focus on his second obsession: Draco and Hermione.

Like all obsessions, this one was persistent and uncontrollable and gradually took over whenever Teddy wasn’t focussed on deciphering the codex. 

Or when he _allowed_ it to.

Funnily enough, this obsession with both his employers came about because of his first. At the thought of it, he felt excited and uneasy at the same time, while the usual signs of arousal evidenced themselves with a dull red flush on his face and a stirring within his trousers.

 _This_ obsession had started three weeks ago to the day. Instead of going out for lunch at his scheduled time, he had been squatting under his desk, picking up the pewter mug that had fallen off when he’d pushed at the codex forcefully in a fit of pique. The codex had slid across his desk, directly into the mug. The mug had then wobbled and teetered precariously at the edge of his desk with all the nervous drama of a would-be jumper before dropping off and rolling under the table. 

Being the type of person he was, Teddy could not have gone off for lunch whilst his quills lay in disarray under his desk. He’d glanced at his watch and suppressed a growl — he was already two minutes behind _his_ scheduled time for lunch — before deciding he could not live with having that mess under his desk. 

And so it was as he’d crouched beneath his desk with a couple of quills in hand that he’d heard the distinct pop of Apparation and the voices of Draco and Hermione. Before he could even pop his head out from under the desk, he had heard a great thump, then a moan, as if someone had banged against a desk. Worried that one of them may have been hurt, he had begun to crawl out from under his desk, but the sight that had greeted him the moment his head cleared the underside of his desk stopped him in his tracks.

It was a sight that, from that moment on, was seared indelibly into his mind and continued to provide him with some of the best sexual fantasies he had ever experienced.

He’d caught Hermione and Draco having sex on Hermione’s desk. From their positions — facing away from him — they never knew he’d spied on them. Hermione had been seated on top of Draco, whose legs could be clearly seen hanging off the edge of Hermione’s desk, both as naked as the day they were born. 

From his angle, Teddy had been able to see everything: the shiny wetness of Draco’s thick cock as Hermione rose up and down on it, Draco’s fingers tensing and relaxing on Hermione’s hips in tempo with her movements, urging her to move faster or slower. It had seemed to Teddy as if Draco’s balls had been playing a game of _peekaboo_ specifically with him: every time Hermione rose up to a particular height — Teddy had been able to discern that her nether lips just about clasped the head of Draco’s cock — Draco’s testicles would proudly be on show, and when Hermione ground down on Draco, they were once again hidden from his view.

It was at the exact moment when Hermione had leaned forward to grip the sides of her desk, presumably to maintain her balance, giving Teddy an extremely clear view of Draco’s cock flashing in and out of her quim that _the_ thought — the one that he was currently obsessing with – had run through his head: how would it feel like if it was him – _Teddy Lupin_ — who was under Hermione Granger at that point in time?

And following that thought had come many others: Would she be making those moaning noises for him? Would she be as wet for him as she was for Draco? Would she boss him around during sex as she was wont to do at the office?

Those thoughts had snuck into his mind and had somehow taken up residence in there ever since. They could not – _would not_ – be dislodged. 

On some days, especially when he wanted to throw the codex into the fireplace and burn the damn book, he would recall the images from that day. It alleviated the stress and disappointments that came with his continual failure to unravel the book’s secrets. 

If he felt stressed by his lack of progress with the book by day’s end, he would relax with one particular fantasy. It would start from that point in time when Hermione had leaned over Draco in order to grip the sides of the desk. Her head would be just above Draco’s and she would be moaning out loud. It would be as she opened her mouth on a particularly loud gasp that he – Teddy – would spring up from his hiding place and thrust his cock into her mouth. 

He would then imagine how her mouth would feel, all moist and hot, clamped tightly around his cock.

How she would use her tongue to feather around the head of his cock before she slid her mouth down to the base and sucked on his balls.

How he would push deep into her throat at the same time she ground down on Draco, her moans vibrating around his cock as she fucked Draco hard. 

If the stress came by midday, then he would indulge in his fantasy right after lunch. Lunch always calmed him down: the act of putting a forkful of food in one’s mouth and chewing, another forkful and chewing it again; it was methodical, repetitive. It was a pattern he understood.

And once lunch was over – he always only needed thirty minutes for lunch – he would start in on his twenty-five minute fantasy of fucking Hermione whilst he was in Draco’s form. It was easy enough to imagine that. He’d got a good look at Draco that day and with practice, had even managed to successfully alter his own appearance to reflect that of Draco’s, right down to the size of Draco’s cock. It was not as long as Teddy’s, but it was thicker.

The day Teddy had managed to successfully shift into Draco, he had stood in front of the mirror in his bedroom, running his hands down his altered shape – Draco’s body – admiring the lean strength in Draco’s arms, the lightly muscled chest, the pale pink nipples. Draco was not a hairy man; the pale hairs covering his chest and arms were so pale and fine as to be almost indiscernible unless one took a really good look at him. The hairs on his thighs were thicker and denser. Draco’s thighs were surprisingly muscular and as Teddy had wondered if Draco still played Quidditch, he had suddenly realised he was hard – or was it Draco who was hard? It didn’t matter, for his cock – Draco’s cock – had sprung to life, and Teddy had, without further thought, run his hands down the lean stomach, following the trail of pale blond hairs down to the thick, hard shaft jutting out from a nest of softly, curling hair. The testicles that had looked to be teasing him that fateful day with short glimpses had been slowly cupped and then fondled. 

Draco’s hands were big and his fingers calloused, so the act of stroking himself had brought, in Teddy’s mind, a very different sensation than when he’d held himself as _himself_. The act of his palm and fingers gripping his cock, stroking back and forth to the extent of pulling the foreskin back, had him shuddering in pleasure.

He had ended up leaning one hand against the mirror, the other hand busy bringing himself to completion, his come spurting out to splash against the reflective surface.

It was an exercise that he committed to faithfully every Monday night, Mondays for him being the most trying day of the week. Pleasuring himself whilst he was in Draco’s form never failed to send him off into a deep, restful sleep for the entire night. 

If however, like today, he felt stressed and edgy even before lunch, well then, that called for his favourite fantasy of all, one that even he admitted was so dirty and twisted that he only pulled it out from the recesses of his mind in dire times.

But today, today he would indulge in it. He _needed_ it.

It was one where he changed into Draco and seduced Hermione in the office. In this fantasy, he would pretend he was really Draco. Hermione wouldn’t know any better, for he had practiced many times in front of the mirror – the way Draco talked, the way he moved – to perfection. 

He would kiss Hermione and push her back against Draco’s desk, pulling one of those terribly ugly tweed skirts she was so fond of wearing up to her waist. And because it was his fantasy, she would not be wearing any knickers underneath it. She would be wet and panting for ‘Draco’ and he would cup her breasts, full, heavy, and tipped with those rosy nipples he’d managed to get a glimpse of that day. He would _Evanesco_ their clothes and lay her down on the table, taking his time in exploring every creamy curve and crevice of her body. She would be wantonly displayed for him: hands above her head, thighs splayed out wide so he could feast on her pussy with its folds slick and shiny and pink, all because of him.

All for him.

He would sample the delights of her body by suckling her breasts, softly at first and then when she begged, he would suck them harder. He would run his hands over her soft, rounded belly and slide his fingers through the brown curls between her thighs. He would rub his thumb over her clit and she would cry out, demanding that he put his mouth on that little nub and suck on it instead. He would slowly lick her clit and progress to gently sucking on it until she thrashed and bucked on the table, screaming for him to fuck her.

Then, and only then, would he slide his cock inside her and it would feel wonderful. 

Hot. Tight. Wet.

_Amazing._

And as he was fucking her, as he thrust in and out of her quim, he would lean back to see his cock being swallowed inch by inch by her pink nether lips on the in-stroke – the same pink folds that would be greedily clasping onto each ridge in his cock as he slowly withdrew.

Only when Hermione was close to completion, only when she begged and pleaded with him to let her come, would the real Draco walk into the room. Hermione would squeal in surprise as she noticed the real Draco heading towards them, but that wouldn’t stop her from enjoying the fucking Teddy was giving her. She would half-heartedly push at Teddy to get off her, but a hard thrust of his cock in response to that objection would cause her to groan, and despite her then knowing it was actually Teddy who was fucking her into Draco’s desk, she would capitulate and instead beg for Teddy to take her harder and faster. And Teddy, like the good employee that he was, would cooperate and she would be moaning and arching her hips, reaching for that elusive feeling that was only moments away.

It would be then that he would withdraw, and despite Hermione’s babbling protests for completion, he would insist Draco join them. Draco would agree and on Teddy’s instructions, would lie on his back on the desk. 

Hermione would then climb on top of Draco and sheath herself on him, and it would be like the scene he had witnessed: Hermione grinding down on Draco, Draco’s knuckles turning white as he gripped Hermione’s hips tightly, the slick wet sounds they made as Hermione rocked herself on Draco.

And at the point when Hermione leaned forward to reach down to grab the sides of the desk, still filled with Draco’s length, he, Teddy, would thrust two of his fingers inside her quim, stretching her tight, slick passage even further for what was to come.

Once in, he would rub his fingers against Draco’s cock, feeling it hard and wet from being sheathed inside Hermione. Draco would moan in pleasure at the feather-like touches Teddy would leave on his cock. Once he was satisfied with teasing both Draco and Hermione with his fingers, Teddy thrust himself into Hermione’s pussy, lodging _his_ cock next to Draco’s. Her pussy would be filled to the brim with both cocks, and together they would move in counterpoint, stretching and filling her to the fullest. 

Would she be able to take it? 

It would feel utterly and deliciously full for her, having two men inside her pussy.

He imagined she would scream with his first thrust, but once that initial shock was over, she would be moaning for more, eagerly wriggling her arse towards him as her thighs widened and her slick walls contracted, trying to accommodate two cocks inside her.

And they would capitulate to her demands to be fucked harder, as the increasing wetness between Hermione’s legs revealed her eagerness for this particular type of coupling.

He shuddered as he again wondered what it would feel like for him to have his cock sliding against Draco’s as they both shared the same, snug orifice. Would Draco be able to feel the ridges on his cock, the veins throbbing as they fucked Hermione together?

How would it feel like to have Draco’s cock rubbing against his whilst he palmed and fondled Hermione’s breasts? 

He pictured in his mind’s eye Hermione passionately kissing Draco whilst he, Teddy, reached over and rubbed furiously at her clit, urging her towards completion.

He hastily fumbled for the fastening on his robes, his hand reaching towards his aching erection. This fantasy always got him as stiff as a poker and he needed to relieve himself desperately.

Closing his eyes as his fist closed over his erection, he returned to the fantasy playing out in his mind. Hermione would be crying out in ecstasy as they pounded into her, and he could feel the wetness starting to coat his hands as he imagined Hermione’s orgasm drenching his cock and Draco’s. He pictured their come flowing down her thighs as he and Draco came, both groaning.

He himself groaned then, and opened his eyes to see the front of his robes wet with white, stringy bits of his come clumped in several places. He made a face; he hated mess of any kind. A quick wave of his wand and his robes were clean and dry again.

He cast a quick cleansing charm on his spent cock and his hands. He then tucked himself neatly back into his robes.

He glanced at the magical clock on the wall; it still showed Hermione and Draco at the meeting with the Ministry. Knowing what the meeting was all about, he was quite certain that they would be there for half an hour more at the very least. And so he turned back to the codex, refreshed and clear of mind, eager to restart his attempts at deciphering. 

He carefully re-positioned the codex – it had been dislodged from its precise location on his desk when he’d jerked at the moment of climax and his elbow had connected with it – and breathed out a sigh. 

That had been relaxing; now, it was back to work.

As he settled into his chair and reached for his favourite quill, he gave a quick glance at the message written in Arabic.

He stared at it. _If_ he disregarded the English translation and just focussed on the Arabic message itself and the _way_ it was written …

He hummed thoughtfully as he fit a fresh nib to his quill and dipped it into the inkpot containing the black ink. He then grabbed a new piece of parchment and started scribbling furiously again, all thoughts focussed intently on the codex.

 

*

_Damascus_  
Seat of the Umayyad Caliphate  
July, 704 CE 

It was close to the end of his days.

The alchemist sat back and looked over the message he had written in Arabic at the very first page of his book, the book that chronicled his life’s greatest achievement.

It would not do for the book to fall into the wrong hands, and so he had painstakingly sought to keep his secret hidden except from those who would understand. Within a series of glyphs purposely written as if to resemble actual words and sentences in a secret language, he had scattered real letters.

The message he had left should guide those learned enough in the right direction. 

It was a simple enough: the first line of the message was made up of three words; the next sentence had six words; the third and final sentence had nine words. From there, it was a simple process of searching each page of the book for sentences that only contained three words and to pick out the third glyph from that sentence. It would be a proper Arabic _abjad_. One had to do the same with sentences comprising of six words and nine words only, and the sixth and ninth glyph in each respective sentence would be an Arabic _abjad_.

A simple process, though perhaps a long and tedious one, the alchemist mused. Those of a discerning mind would see the pattern once they understood and _saw_ the message for what it really was.

As a further safeguard, the alchemist had shuffled the Arabic _abjad_ in such a way that only if one set out the letters in a certain, preset way, would one be able to finally decipher the text.

In this, the word _guide_ and the number _three_ – the common denominator of the numbers three, six and nine as emphasised in the message itself – were the clues. 

Those learned in alchemy knew that the father of alchemy himself was Hermes Trismegistus. He was also known as the Thrice Great Hermes, hence the clue reference of the number _three_.

The word _guide_ should also lead one to Hermes Trimegistus. 

Hermes Trimegistus was the syncretic combination of the Greek God Hermes with the Egyptian God Thoth. Both deities were considered gods of writing and magic within their communities. They were also psychopomps: gods _guiding_ the souls of the dead to the afterlife. 

Hermes Trimegistus had been credited with proclaiming thirteen things that explained the nature and origin of the universe, and man’s role as the catalyst for all natural reactions in time and space.

As such, if one set out each _abjad_ in the order of its appearance in the book in vertical rows of thirteen letters each, he would be able to finally decipher the text. The words setting out the instructions to transmute metal into gold can then be read from top to bottom, starting from the left.

Simple, the alchemist thought. 

He nodded his head decisively and closed the book.

_Finis_

**Author's Note:**

> Khalid ibn Yazid and Marianos are real historical figures. 
> 
> Khalid was an Umayyad price and studied alchemy under the Christian monk, Marianos. You can read more about Khalid and his contributions as well as those of other Islamic alchemists towards the science of alchemy and consequently chemistry, on www.wikipedia.org. 
> 
> The references to Hermes Trismegistus were also taken from www.wikipedia.org.
> 
> It was when I was almost finished with this story that I ran across an interesting titbit regarding Khalid and Marianos that may lend some credence to my tale. In John Eberly’s book, _Al-Kimia: The Mystical Islamic Essence of the Sacred Art of Alchemy_ , Eberly writes that Khalid came across a secret text that allowed one to make the Philosopher’s Stone, an elixir so powerful that it is able to turn metal into gold as well as preserve one’s youth. However, Khalid was only able to decipher the text’s secrets with Marianos’ help. Together, they both successfully produced the Philosopher’s Stone.
> 
> The _Liber de compositione alchimiae_ is an existing text on alchemy. 
> 
> The _Liber Secretorum Alchimiae_ is made up by yours truly and is not real … well, unless the legend _is_ true and Khalid and Marianos really did manage to produce the Philosopher’s Stone …


End file.
